


The Twelve Days of Christmas (or how Dorian managed to drive everyone insane for twelve straight days)

by ErisianDiva78



Category: Almost Human
Genre: 12 Days of Christmas a la Dorian, CHRISTMAS CHAOS, Gen, Holiday Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2014-12-24
Packaged: 2018-03-03 04:20:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2837735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ErisianDiva78/pseuds/ErisianDiva78
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just what the title says.  Twelve days of chaos Dorian-style.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Twelve Days of Christmas (or how Dorian managed to drive everyone insane for twelve straight days)

**Author's Note:**

> This was my contribution to the Almost Human Advent Calendar on Tumblr.

On the first day of Christmas, Dorian can’t locate a partridge.

Or a pear tree. Partridges, while a member of the pheasant family, are an endangered species. So when the Captain walks through the glass doors, leading toward her office and the bullpen, she’s overcome with the sound of holographic birds. Hundreds of holographic birds. They light on every surface, covering the room with their brightly colored plumage. She has an idea who might be responsible, but no one is owning up. And Dorian, it seems, has a really convincing poker face.

No one comments on the small bonsai plants that grace each desk. Each plant is bedecked in frivolity. Small ornaments dangle from the delicate branches.

John stares at his, when he finally comes in (twenty-two minutes, fourteen seconds late) for his shift. Donut caught between his teeth, he stares around at the chaos and color in the bullpen and tries to actually get some work done. He can’t. Damned birds won’t shut up. Interestingly, he’s the only person who notices just how damned smug Dorian is.

~~

On the second day of Christmas, Dorian actually locates two turtle doves.

He’s not certain why it is the creator of the song had such a fixation with creatures of the avian variety. But he brings in the pair in a cage and leaves them on a shelf near the Captain’s office. They coo and he finds that the sound is surprisingly soothing.

Detective Stahl seems utterly entranced by the small, white birds. He catalogs how she is constantly distracted by the birds and her work productivity takes a decided nosedive (she’s down fourteen point oh-three percent on her normal productive schedule). Detective Kennex spends the entirety of his shift complaining about the noise and demanding either ear-plugs or a grill to cook the birds.

Dorian reminds Kennex that the small birds are not actually for eating, and would probably have very little meat on their bones. The detective gives him a dirty look and vanishes for coffee. Dorian doesn’t actually see him for the rest of the shift.

Rudy, however, lodges a complaint that Kennex snores too loudly to concentrate while repairing MX Units.

~~

On the third day of Christmas, Dorian is questioning the sanity and functionality of having so many birds in one song.

He also cannot locate three french hens.

However, he can find clone chickens. It takes four MX Units, several beat cops and Richard running around waving his arms to round up the small fowl when he lets them loose in the department. The janitorial department lodges a complaint for the sheer amount of chicken droppings that are cleaned up, not to mention the feathers that were loosed during the chicken chase. Several computers were clogged and needed to be cleaned or replaced.

Dorian discovers he doesn’t particularly care for birds.

~~

On the fourth day of Christmas, Dorian has decided he definitely does not care for birds in close proximity to humanity.

He finds and brings in two pairs of exotic parrots, having no real basis for what a ‘calling bird’ might be.

By the end of shift, that day, the brightly colored birds are squawking a variety of obscenities never before recorded by the DRN unit. It would seem that both Detective Paul and Detective Kennex learned that the birds mimic human speech. And the men took it upon themselves to (as Rudy explained) one-up the other, seeing just how many expletives they could teach the birds.

When they are returned to the avian keeper, because Captain Maldonado refuses to have foul-mouthed fowl in her precinct, the keeper is shocked and appalled at just how crudely the birds are speaking.

He charges Rudy’s account for the inconvenience. Rudy, when he finds out, threatens to send Dorian back to the MX Changing Station.

~~

On the fifth day of Christmas, Dorian is finally relieved to be done with the damned birds.

Rings, though, those are considerably more expensive than birds.

He settles for headbands for five of the MX Units.

Unfortunately, the headbands are comprised of LED lights for the holidays. The strobe effect, after several hours, leaves six officers with migraine headaches, two have vomited into their trash cans, and the janitorial crew, still disgruntled following the chicken incident have staged a strike, refusing to clean anything more.

Maldonado, once she can get past the smell and the headache, herself, assigns the MX Units to clean. They do, of course, but it reduces their productivity on the streets and raises questions concerning the effectiveness of the precinct.

Dorian is considering ending the song after just five days.

~~

On the sixth day of Christmas, Dorian is noticeably chagrined.

There are six cloned geese loose in the lower levels of the precinct. The MX Units spend the morning chasing the honking terrors. Detective Kennex found the whole situation so humorous he was relieved of duty for the day, lest he incur more of the Captain’s wrath. Dorian catalogs the event, having never seen the detective laugh so hard before.

Captain Maldonado pulls Dorian from duty to insist he assist with the cleaning of the lower levels. He discovers several eggs that were laid by the surprised birds. One of the eggs is delivered to Rudy, who decides to keep it and name it Rufus.

By the time the Captain is ready to leave for the day, there’s a precinct-wide threat that states that anyone caught bringing birds inside the building will be terminated (read: deactivated) immediately.

Dorian takes the threat very seriously and hopes fervently that there are no more birds in the song.

~~

On the seventh day of Christmas, Dorian takes another approach.

The holographic birds on day one had been, largely, received positively. With that in mind, he programs the computers to project the holographic feed of the swans swimming lazily through the air.

The Captain, knowing that the threat from the day before kept the birds from being real, spends the morning demanding who reprogrammed the computers. And when she can’t locate the culprit, begins assigning anyone who looks at her wrong beat jobs.

Detective Kennex finds himself working as a crossing guard for the rest of the day.

Interestingly, the precinct is quieter and more peaceful with the man out on the streets. Dorian knows he will never hear the end of that one.

~~

On the eighth day of Christmas, Dorian is wishing that the creator of the song didn’t have such an animal fixation.

Maids a-milking? There’s no way he can bring cows into the precinct.

There’s no way he can bring civilians into the precinct.

Milk has long been established as a pointless beverage for humans beyond infancy. While some still choose to drink it, the growth hormones that had overtaken the benefits of the drink pushed it to a nearly illegal status.

Still, he’s eight days into the song. Only four remain. So he pulls a few strings with one of the local Synthetic (and yes, he still dislikes that word) Manufacturers. Eight lovely companions (that Detective Paul keeps referring to as Bang-Bots) have taken residence around the precinct. The Captain is beside herself, trying to understand why it is they’re bathing in milk. The bots don’t need to bathe. But they’ve milked holographic cows and, to Dorian’s surprise (and horror), have begun using the milk to entice customers.

When he takes the bots back to their manufacturer at the end of the day, three have gone off with officers in the precinct.

~~

On the ninth day of Christmas, Dorian’s feeling a little better about the situation.

No more birds!

Instead, he locates another Synth Store and brings in nine bots to dance throughout the precinct. They do so, much to the embarrassment of the Captain, who realizes that the dancing bots are gaining more attention than the work at hand.

The bots are placed outside the building, where they continue to dance as they were instructed.

And at the end of the day, Dorian can’t find a single bot to take back. Thankfully, there’s a GPS tracker on each one. The dealer doesn’t charge Dorian for the extended time. But the people who had taken off with the bots might find an additional amount taken off of their sticks.

~~

On the tenth day of Christmas, Dorian doesn’t know where to even begin locating Lords.

Let alone, Lords that might leap.

Royalty exists only in history feeds now. And Dorian has a sneaking suspicion that the Captain might not appreciate ten men leaping about the precinct. They wouldn’t be as messy as the birds, but the medical bills for any injuries sustained by the leaping about would be astronomical.

With a sigh of defeat, Dorian loads up a holographic program that allows medieval lords to leap about above the heads of the working Detectives. Detective Paul, distracted by the holographic lords, knocks over one of the water coolers and shorts out half of the computers in the bullpen. They shut down the other half to keep from electrocuting anyone, and the MX Units spend the afternoon cleaning up water and glass.

Dorian steers clear of the Captain for the rest of the day.

~~

On the eleventh day of Christmas, Dorian’s sure Captain Maldonado is going to send him to NASA or have him deactivated on the spot. Eleven pipers piping.

He wasn't sure he could find eleven, but interestingly enough the local Elementary school was still teaching the children the benefit of recorders as music. Dorian wasn't sure he agreed that it actually /was/ music, but he wasn't going to point that out to the children.

Taking their place just inside the main doors, the eleven children make an attempt at Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. And Frosty the Snowman. And Jingle Bells. By the time they’re ready to being Sleigh Ride, Captain Maldonado is sending them packing back to the school. Dorian and Rudy are forced to sit with the children and endure the high-pitched, off-key ‘music.’

Detective Kennex won’t make eye contact when the pair leave with the children, and Dorian has the impression that the detective sold him out finally.

When he finally arrives at Rudy’s lab, he discovers a chicken loose and wreaking havoc. The feathers, feces and chaos is enough to keep both men busy for the rest of the night.

Dorian shows up for day twelve with a sixty-three percent charge. But seeing Rudy running around, red-faced and swearing at the chicken, seems somehow worth the low charge.

~~

On the twelfth day of Christmas, a low-charge Dorian finds one of the local high school drum lines and has them march into the precinct.

The resulting cacophony chases the entire floor out onto the streets to find something else to do that doesn't require them listening to a drum line attempting to play Christmas songs.

The only one who seems unaffected is Detective Kennex, who is sporting a nice pair of earplugs. Dorian surmises that either someone informed the detective, or he predicted due to the song’s nature.

Finally, at the end of the day, both Rudy and Dorian are pulled aside. Captain Maldonado, who has suffered through twelve days of hell, looks at the pair and growls softly. “If I /ever/ have to endure anything like that again, you’re both going to be sent so far away, no one will ever find you again.”

She leaves the pair, and Dorian turns to his friend.

"I think we ought to have Sleigh Ride next year."

"Twelve days of Sleigh Ride?" Rudy asks.

"Sure, why not? Just no more birds."

"Rufus might disagree with you on that."

"Merry Christmas, my friend."

"Merry Christmas, Rudy."


End file.
